


Sound

by DasIchigo



Category: One Piece
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Sad, Sort Of, and its sad so beware, pretty much just brook being alone on the ship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-19 05:49:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29621556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DasIchigo/pseuds/DasIchigo
Summary: The creaking of rotting planks almost began to sound like music if Brook listened to it for long enough.
Kudos: 8





	Sound

The creaking of rotting planks almost began to sound like music if Brook listened to it for long enough. 

A twisted song that painfully played the heartstrings he wished he had like notes on a out of tune guitar. They hurt in ears he no longer had, creaking and screaming.

If Brook listed for long enough, the wind's howling on especially cold and stormy nights almost sounded like a torturous version of Laboon's singing. Plagued, too deep, too high, like cries of a wounded animal. Cries that sounded especially bad in par with his own.

Heels clicked on deck out of rhythm with the rattling of his own bones from every movement he made. He could feel them scratching against one another in sounds that were never supposed to be made. They long since stopped unsettling him but the noises still haunted the back of his mind when he took note of them for just a bit too long.

There was no direction, no tune to the song he constantly heard, played by no one but still so painfully real. And yet, he couldn't afford asking for the noises to stop ringing in his skull since the silence would be oh so much worse.

Everything felt out of sync, wrong, an orchestra without a conductor. Except that there was no orchestra and he was the conductor it was missing.

His pacing once again coming to a stop. The click of his last step on slippery planks bounced off the thick mist just long enough to give him the illusion he wasn't alone. And yet, the skulls rolling across deck with every shift the ship took reminded him he was.

Brook couldn't close his eyes to avert his gaze from the plain reality of his loss. He would have to stow them away, safely in honour of his former crew mates. But his bony hands shook whenever he leaned down too far, his friends just so closely out of his reach.

Turning again, his clothes rustle just slightly with the movement. The fabric was thin and torn. It tickled his spine and ribcage, spreading an unwelcome feeling through body parts he no longer held. His skin tingled and itched at the sensation but Brook had already learned to resist moving his hands to ease the feeling. He knew they would meet nothing but air and eventually grazing bone against cartilage.

Usually, Brook liked to avoid his body parts touching. Instead, he reached his arm up, feeling the firmness of his afro as he held onto his hat. The wind blowing strong against his now fragile form, Brook took a tentative step back.

Compared to when he was still alive, his body felt weak. Too light, too empty and not enough of anything. There was no heart that would race and clench at the sight of his deceased friends. Eyeballs missing with no lids to cover them from the horrific loneliness right in front of him. No lips to embrace the empty cup of tea or to tremble with the tears that shouldn't be there. He had no lungs to expand his chest every time he attempted to inhale the musty air.

And yet, Brook could feel all those things, so very real and there but they weren't. It was probably the most unsettling part of it all. This feeling of false liveliness that irked and bugged him and made his whole body itch from this phony realism he despised so much.

It ate away at his sanity like maggots on corpses and Brook just didn't know how to stop it other than scratching the inside of his skull to please, just please, make that throbbing stop and those thoughts vanish with the echoing of laughter that he was sure he could hear.

A laugh echoed through the darkness. This time very real and clearly his own. A sound he was grateful for even if it was his own voice. At least it was not a fabrication of his imagination. A luxury he rarely got to enjoy in this abandoned part of the Grand Line. Paradise, like hell.

But even to him, however, his voice sounded different from when he was alive. There was a almost ghostly echo that originated from where his throat once was. It spread through his hollow oral cavity and vibrated between his teeth. At least those still felt familiar.

Brook tried not to think too much about where his voice came from with no vocal cords to form the sound. It was easier to just ignore the possibility of his own permanent silence and instead file it away as another thing he could not explain about his current state.

There was a gentleness in the sound of rain hitting the deck as the winds picked up more. Soothing and cold on his bones. Brook shifted his gaze to the sky, feeling the water flow into every creak and joint of his exposed skeleton. His body wet in ways that should not be possible, a sensation he never wanted to feel despite knowing the inevitability of this outcome since he ate his devil fruit. 

It was the heaviness of his afro and clothes weighing him down that signalled Brook it was time to leave the deck and head inside.

Closing the door behind him, Brook hummed, thoughtful as he sat down in a once comfortable chair in the corner of the room. Now, the fabric was ripped and the stuffing fell out of its cushions. If he were any good at it, Brook would try fixing it, if only for old times sake.

He spent most of his time on deck, but when he wasn't, he stayed in what once was the great dining hall. It reminded him of his crew and the fun they shared, allowed him to relish in memories until he had to shake his head as not to get lost in illusions. There was no point for him to spend the nights in what formerly was his sleeping cabin, a foolish captains privilege. The loneliness and nightmares too dangerously close to catching up to him.

Brook's humming was accompanied by the sounds of rain hitting the ship. It was a lullaby, gentle and familiar. One he knew by heart as well as the notes. 

Yet, with all this time he held, two bony hands just weren't enough to play all those instruments he knew at once. One man was simply not enough to form a whole orchestra and no matter how many songs Brook wrote and sung, an essential part would always be missing. His voice alone not enough to fill the silence.

Once again, Brook shivered at the stillness. Instead, pulling a small shell out of the empty space of his skull. He cradled the item in his hands with care. Fingers tracing the familiar pattern of the dial before finding their way to the centre.

Pushing the button, he leaned back into his chair, legs pulled up against his ribcage, bones bending at the pressure. He absently wondered what would happen if he broke them all? How much could this body be destroyed before his devil fruit powers lost their effect? Would his soul just linger without a body forever? How long could this go? 

But again, Brook did not want to idle on those thoughts. Afraid they would take over his mind when there was still a mission he had to fulfill. A message to deliver and a promise to live up to. The thought of Laboon no longer being where they had left him one he tried to push as far back into his mind as he could. Yet, a worry that liked to resurface whenever the recording was everything he had to ease the painful emptiness in his chest that he was unable to grasp with his hands.

For now, however, there was nothing he could do. There was nothing that would guarantee a future in which he would be able to reclaim his shadow. No future in which he would be able to leave this ship or relish in the warmth of the sun again. It was hard to stay hopeful when there was nothing there to give him any.

Along with the music coming to an end, Brook rested his head on his knees. The sound of his crewmembers bodies lifelessly hitting the very deck he walked across just shortly ago one that continued to haunt his thoughts. Pretending that again, the wet feeling was the rain that soaked through his clothes, Brook placed the dial back into his skulls, an item too precious to lose. The shell being the only item that still offered him some sort of twisted comfort and purpose to go after.

With the rain soon coming to an end and there still being time left until the sun would rise again, Brook stood again.

The noises outside would make his ears drum and head hurt, eyes burn from not only the saltwater spraying on deck. His throat dry and lips chipped from both singing and fighting. A sharp pain in his lungs and heart slowing as the poison overwhelmed his senses. Skin tingling before finally going numb, unable to feel the smooth keys of the piano underneath his fingertips.

But to Brook that was much less painful than the thoughts silence brought.


End file.
